Effect of counselling on maternal–fetal attachment in unwanted pregnancy: a randomised controlled trial

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The present study aimed to determine the effect of group counselling on Maternal–Fetal Attachment (MFA) in mothers with unwanted pregnancy.

Methods: This study was a randomised clinical trial. The participants were 80 mothers with unwanted pregnancy during 28–34 weeks of pregnancy who referred to health centres of Karaj to receive prenatal care in 2018. The women were randomly assigned into intervention (N = 40) and control groups (N = 40). The intervention group received four weekly group counselling sessions to promote MFA and the control group received routine care. Cranley’s Maternal–Fetal Attachment Scale was used to assess the attachment of mother to fetus at baseline and two weeks after counselling. An ANCOVA test was performed to evaluate the effect of intervention and the number of parity.

Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of general health scores and attachment of mother to fetus at baseline, but after the intervention, the mean scores of MFA in the intervention group had a significant difference with the control group (p < 0.001); the ANCOVA test indicated that attachment scores were significant in terms of intervention and pregnancy group and attachment scores indicated further increase in the primipara group compared to the multipara group (p = 0.041).

Conclusion: Considering the effectiveness of group counselling in improving MFA in unplanned pregnancy, it can be used in prenatal care.

KEYWORDS:

• Maternal–fetal attachment
• attachment behaviours
• unwanted pregnancy
• unplanned pregnancy
• group counselling

Acknowledgments

We appreciate all those who collaborated in this research, especially pregnant mothers and health centre staff. This research was conducted in partial fulfilment of a Master degree in Counselling in Midwifery in Alborz University of Medical Sciences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Alborz University of Medical Sciences with the code number: ABZUMS. Rec.1397.017. Moreover, the study was registered as the registration number of IRCT20161230031662N5 in Iranian Clinical Trial System. All participants gave written informed consent to participate in the study prior to randomisation.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Alborz University of Medical Sciences.